The Star with the Broken Rope: Book 3 - The Fire Mountain

By Kevin CRAMPTON

The road onwards leads around and away from the great city at the centre of the desert, its brutal ruler deposed, its gateways open to those formerly outcast.

The exiles from the cliff must complete their crossing of the great empty wastes of the desert into uncharted regions almost lost to living memory. There are fragments of the great map that suggest that green life returns again at the very end of the rocky plain, and that the earth fractures and tilts upwards to shape the solitary mythical fire mountain at the centre of creation – the place that calls even the unswerving wind to itself.

The red cave within the mountain holds the promise of final answers, a redressing of the injustices of the past, and a conclusion to the years of searching.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781447755791

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The Star with the Broken Rope

Book 3: The Fire Mountain

Kevin Crampton

Copyright © Kevin Crampton 2023

Kevin Crampton has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance between characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-4477-5667-5

The Star with the Broken Rope Trilogy

Book 1: The Cliff

Book 2: The Desert

Book3: The Fire Mountain

For those no longer here, missed and never forgotten.  For Richard, Katie, Jo, Liliana and the gaps they left behind in our lives.

A special thanks to everyone that assisted with proof-reading and providing valuable feedback during the realisation of this novel.  In particular, Simone Mongiardo for tireless and timely feedback month after month.

CHAPTER 1: Between Worlds

CHAPTER 2: The Reunion

CHAPTER 3: The Judgement

CHAPTER 4: The North Gate

CHAPTER 5: The Siege

CHAPTER 6: The Coffee Pot

CHAPTER 7: The Scriptorium

CHAPTER 8: The Wind Walkers

CHAPTER 9: The Swallowed Sun

CHAPTER 10: The Mound

CHAPTER 11: The Parting

CHAPTER 12: The Trees of Silence

CHAPTER 13: The Trumpets

CHAPTER 14: The Things Below

CHAPTER 15: The Remnant

CHAPTER 16: The Treetops

CHAPTER 17: The Landing

CHAPTER 18: The Cabin

CHAPTER 19: The Ascent

CHAPTER 20: The Place of Peace

CHAPTER 21: The Bivouac

CHAPTER 22: The Mediator

CHAPTER 23: The Final Fall

Epilogue: The Star

CHAPTER 1: Between Worlds

He came in the dead of the morning, the time somewhere between the dusk and the dawn that is the furthest possible point from daylight.  Rocas had once heard that more people die at this time than any other moment in the passage of the day.  It was when the body is at its weakest and most vulnerable – that time when a campfire has almost burned itself out and before being replaced by the warmth of the new day arriving.

The creature that pushed aside the hanging flaps of the tent door and stepped into the space where the group were waiting was unlike anything that Rocas had seen before.  Certainly, it was a man as it was fashioned with arms, legs and moved upright but it was as if a sliver of moonlight had been captured and shaped into the form of a human being.  Involuntarily, a shiver of fear passed through Rocas’ body at its appearance and the silent, awkward, unnatural way that it moved.

It stood several heads taller than the tallest person Rocas had ever seen and was naked save for a small loin cloth.  Its skin was blindingly white, so pale that Rocas fancied that it must be translucent and even in the faint light of a torch she thought she could see the blood moving just beneath the surface, black and viscous.  No hair adorned that flesh so that one impression was of a monstrous overgrown child.

Its eyes were an unnatural red, as though an injury had caused blood to flow into them and most shocking of all, a red gemstone was set into the middle of its chest, buried into the torso, and surrounded by a mass of scarred flesh. 

This then must be Prasutagus, the creature that seemed to be the leader of this place.  Rocas understood perfectly how he installed awe in any that laid eyes upon it.

This place was, Rocas reflected, a world between worlds and everything had seemed alien to her since she had arrived with her family and travelling companions.  This strange, makeshift settlement of crudely assembled dwellings that sat between the lonely desert sand stretching off to distant red hills and the soaring curtain wall of the great city.  It did not even have its own name and was simply referred to as the Without, its existence defined in relation to the sprawling water-rich metropolis on the other side of the wall, the place that its inhabitants longed to reach.

The people themselves were caught in this transitory state, belonging neither to the sand nor the city and living in an eternal limbo.  It showed in their sunken, furtive eyes, the withered hands that grabbed for whatever spoils were discarded from the city walls or fell from the trading caravans that passed daily through the massive, heavily guarded gateways that were the only means of access.

It was a place of sickness and sorrow therefore, an outcast humanity that clung like rock spiders to the base of the wall and watched the daily opening of the gates, ready to seize any opportunity to end the waiting.  Most were too weak to venture back out into the desert, and perhaps whatever lives they had left there to make their initial journey to the City were even more wretched than their existence here.  And so, they scratched out a pitiful existence clustering around the brackish wells that, when thrust deep enough, syphoned a little of the city’s water or, worse, filtering the waste that flowed from the filthy, grated culverts that punctuated the base of the wall in its march across the sands.

Rocas thought it appropriate that such a pale and sick-looking creature had become the leader of this cursed community.

We must travel and survive among them many days, thought Rocas, if we’re to travel right around the city, keeping the wall always to our left and reach the west gate.  She did not know how it would be possible but hoped that this Prasutagus would offer some protection.

Her travelling companions were spread out across the sand floor of the grubby tent in which they had been waiting ever since their escape from the City.  They were also staring, in silent wonder at the white man who moved boldly and silently to the centre of the space so that he was surrounded by them.  No guards or retainers accompanied him and Rocas was puzzled that he moved in this place without protection.

It was a deep, moonless night and only a silver of illumination from some distant torch penetrated through the opening of their shelter.  Rocas could only just make out Zoticus the Zealot, once a noble of the City who had chosen to fight against its autocratic ruler, the Ethnarch.  Zoticus’ eyes were also open and alert beneath his untidy blonde hair that was now almost shoulder-length after his time in the Ethnarch’s prison.  He had become their leader as he’d organised their recent escape from the City and said he’d communicated ahead to make a bargain with this pale man.

Zoticus had led them safely out of the City where the Ethnarch had also held Rocas captive, but it had only been possible with the help of the master forger, the penwright, who was now laying on his back snoring, unaware of their visitor.  Even his skill in crafting documents of passage had not been sufficient however and lying next to him, the man who had also joined their company at the last moment to leave the City was Jephesus, the former keeper of the Eastern Gate who had allowed them to leave and condemned himself to self-imposed exile by the act.  Jephesus was silently watching the tall man and Rocas saw him make a small gesture with his hand, tracing out a triangle.

Her mother Chalia was holding on to Aaron.  This was the man she’d always called father but who she’d recently learned was not of her blood.  It altered nothing in her feelings for him, he had taken care of her all her life in place of the father she had never met, a Prince Tyrus that Aaron had known long, long ago when they lived over the edge of the world on the fathomless cliff that was the boundary of this land.  The party had begun journeying west in search of this Prince since Aaron was convinced that he still lived and had also survived the great landslide of the cliff half a generation ago.

These were her companions but also present in the tent was the dagger that hung from the belt at her hip.  Aaron had retrieved the weapon from a crashed flying balloon, the machines that had borne him and Chalia safely away from the cliff before the disaster, and the red gemstone set into its hilt felt like a seventh member of their party.  If she allowed her mind to focus on it, the blood-red gem seemed to reach out and whisper to her with a multitude of voices, each fighting for attention so that nothing was intelligible.  It also urged her into the west, to find the source of the rising sun that set fire to a mountain.

So, the party’s journey west was both to find her father, this Prince Tyrus, if he lived, and answer the irresistible call of the stone even though Rocas dreaded what she might find at the end of the journey and had a strong sense of foreboding about the unearthly whispers.

That gemstone set within Rocas’ dagger found its twin in the chest of this white leader of those Without.  Rocas recognised the stone hewn into the man’s body as a soul stone, another speaking gem and it was this that shocked her most.  Against the unnatural white of his skin, the stone looked like a living rock heart lit with an inner pulsating light.

This Prasutagus did not speak, he stood motionless among the travellers and his eyes continued to pass slowly over them with little interest.  Time seemed to slow as the tension grew and it was Zoticus who broke the silence, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness of the deep night.

You are the one I spoke to before we left the City, through the crack in the wall?  It was meant as a question, but the pale man took it as a simple statement and his bloody eyes came to rest on Zoticus and showed no reaction.

We had an agreement, continued Zoticus the Zealot uncertainly, safe passage through the shanty town and around the City from here in the east to the western gate.

The pale man inclined his head the barest fraction, his every movement seemed to be designed for efficiency, no energy was wasted.

We had an agreement, the white figure echoed and the voice, escaping from grey lips that barely parted, caused Rocas to shudder again.  It was like the wind whistling across the desert and stirring the dry limbs of long-dead plants, but somehow caught and twisted so that it sounded like something halfway between a whisper and a quiet scream.  Rocas’ skin prickled at its sound, and she could see that it had the same effect on her companions.  The penwright stirred from his sleep.

So, you will honour it? continued Zoticus trying to be assertive but clearly unsettled by the strange behaviour of this silver creature.  You will ensure safe passage in return for the forger who can get your people safely through the City gates by his craft of creating the papers of passage?  Zoticus extended a finger and pointed at the penwright.  The party turned to him shocked.

This was your deal? asked Chalia angrily.  To hand the penwright over?

This was the only agreement possible, replied Zoticus quietly and with a hint of shame.  I take no pleasure in it, but the scribe will be well looked after by these people in return for the entry papers he can create.  He may even be safer here, at his age, than upon the dangerous road we must travel.  He’s valuable to them.

We promised to protect him, added Rocas with calm fury.  In his workshop, I said that we would guard his life as if it were our own, I swore that to him.

His life will be well guarded, just not by us, shot back Zoticus and Rocas felt her anger mounting further, that the Zealot would’ve even considered such a bargain.  Until now she had thought of him as a man of principle and purpose, she recalled their escape from the Ethnarch’s citadel and the moment together in the qanat that had felt almost intimate as she’s decided that she would trust him fully.  The betrayal of that trust struck her deeply.

The scribe is worthless to us, our agreement must change, interrupted pale Prasutagus and his voice, seemingly barely louder than a whisper was like a cold desert zephyr passing through the tent.  The words silenced everyone, and they returned their attention to him as he continued slowly speaking, forming the words carefully and with the same efficiency as his movements.  We saw the manner of your departure from the City, he added, you were chased out by a flight of arrows, no papers allowed you to walk free.

You are right, agreed Jephesus laying a protective hand on the scribe’s shoulders, the Ethnarch’s seal on those papers of passage is changed each year, our companion the scribe does not have the latest impression, he cannot offer you free entry into the City.  Please allow him to remain with us.  He is no use to you.

No use, no, continued Prasutagus coldly, so a new agreement, you all live in exchange for another, and he turned his red eyes to stare back directly at Jephesus.  Welcome to Without, he hissed with an icy fury that made Rocas’ blood run cold, it was the first emotion the pale man had shown, and the deep malice was unmistakable.  Welcome erstwhile Gatekeeper, you have many crimes to answer for.

Everyone froze at the instant air of menace that cloyed the atmosphere inside the tent.  Jephesus’ shoulders sank and he shifted to kneel in the sand with his head bowed.

It is true.  As gatekeeper I kept your people out by blade and arrow bolt, I have ordered murder and exile in service of my Ethnarch but the fact that I kneel before you now and left the City should tell you something of my changed feelings about my former duties.

Jephesus kept his head lowered, studying the dirty sand in front on him and suddenly remembered something that a fortune teller had once told him.  It had been on the morning of the day that he had first met these travellers when they entered the City.  The filthy prophet’s words had been that the day would bring his reward and his punishment, a death sentence, and a deliverance.  He thought he understood the riddle now, he had found freedom from the City only to die within the shadow of its walls.  It was perhaps a more honourable way to die than the fate that his father had found.

Blood for blood, answered Prasutagus simply, you bleed out into the sand in payment for the bodies you rained on us from your safety atop the City wall.  It was spoken with such cold assurance that Rocas could already imagine the people living Without ripping the gatekeeper apart.

Zoticus struggled within himself.  Although prepared to give a member of the party into service and slavery, to give a life was too much and offended everything he believed he stood for in his opposition to the cruel rule of the Ethnarch within the City.  Rocas’ injured expression had also brought the blood burning to his face in shame and with it, the surprising revelation that he cared what she thought.  He made up his mind.

This man risked his life to set us free, abandoning everything.  A scribe we agreed to give you in servitude, not a man’s life.

Prasutagus did not take his eyes from Jephesus and replied with a voice so soft that it was barely audible,

His life or all of your lives, we have too many mouths to feed here as it is.

You stand among us unarmed and unprotected and threaten? said Zoticus more boldly.  What is to stop us cutting you down where you stand? and he drew the knife he had taken from the barman in the City.

Prasutagus still did not turn toward his aggressor but curiously remained still and calm considering the man kneeling before him.  Unexpectedly, he closed his eyes.

Try then, strike me and if this sand drinks just one spot of my blood, I will forgo my justice for the gatekeeper’s crimes, and you walk from here unharmed.

A heartbeat passed, Zoticus looking puzzled and uncertain, his confidence shaken by the man’s strange manner, but he glanced around the group and finding no answer in their eyes, lunged forward with all his force and energy, intending to lay the knife’s edge against the man’s arm, a flesh wound only to deliver a drop of blood.

What happened next was a blur of speed and fluid motion, a flash of white limbs and an economy of movement that could’ve been the steps of a dance.  With his eyes still closed, the white man remained motionless until Zoticus was almost upon him and then with a graceful quickness that was unnatural he bent to the side, dodging the slash of the blade, and pivoted around Zoticus as the Zealot stabbed forward.  Zoticus was off-balance when his weapon did not connect and Prasutagus slammed into him as he passed, tripping him, and propelling him face down into the sand.  And in mid-fall, Prasutagus hand connected with Zoticus’ outstretched arm in a chopping motion and the dagger was released and fell point-first, burying itself harmlessly into the ground.

Prasutagus returned to his same, immobile position standing in the centre of the tent and opened his eyes and continued to look at the former gatekeeper, Jephesus.

The whole thing had lasted a few seconds and Rocas was horrified and awed by what she had seen, it defied all her experience that a man could move as Prasutagus had just done.

I have seen your kind before, spoke Aaron for the first time since the pale man had entered the dwelling.  Aaron had also worn an expression of mixed awe and amazement but there was something more in his eyes, a look of pity.

Prasutagus removed his gaze from the gatekeeper and although his face registered no emotion his tone altered slightly, betraying, Rocas thought, a hint of curiosity.

There are no others like me, he said simply.

They were deep underground, in a place I once lived on the cliff, explained Aaron.  The same gemstone had been carved into their bodies as the one you wear.  It was put there by their masters as a mark of ownership, they were born of women without men.  Are you such a one?

Prasutagus ignored the question.

This is no mark of slavery, he was clearly offended by the suggestion.  He lay a finger upon the gem in the centre of his chest, it made Rocas flinch, I did this to myself.

Is that how you are able to move like that? asked Rocas, her curiosity overcoming her fear.  She remembered something that Zoticus had once told her about why the Nobles of the City set the soul stones into their weapons.  It was said that the gems spoke to them in battle and helped them fight, the voices in the red rock guided the wielder.

Zoticus had reached the same conclusion, he was back on his feet, returning his dagger to its scabbard looking dazed by what had just happened.

I have seen it before, added Aaron, those with the gem in their bodies who could move within the dark as though it were the brightest midday and catch a falling dagger before it hit the ground.  What he had seen this evening took him back to the archive beneath the cliff, to the blind assistants moving silently in the darkness of their book lanes, creatures that seemed not quite of this world.

I am joined to it as closely as I can be, stated Prasutagus and he now turned to look at Rocas, his grey lips curving into a barely perceptible smile.  Show me your weapon, Rocas.

How do you know my name?  She drew the dagger from her belt and held it up to show the gem set into its hilt.

It speaks to you, doesn’t it?  You have the gift in abundance, stated Prasutagus.  You hear the voices, and the voices know you, that is how I know your name and why you’re travelling to the west.  The voices are inside me, and he touched the gemstone again and its inner light flickered in response.

What is in the west? Rocas asked timidly, afraid of the answer.

Prasutagus’ eyes glazed over, and he appeared to focus on a point somewhere above and beyond Rocas’ head in the corner of the tent.  His voice seemed to change pitch slightly as he said,

Come to me girl, find me.  At the source, where you belong.  Rocas had heard those words before, from a woman whose mind was lost in the power of the red stone.  She trembled again with the sense of a menacing fate urging her onwards and which she felt powerless to avoid.

This is the desire of the speaking stone, confirmed Prasutagus, so for you, I will do all in my power to see it fulfilled.

You said blood for blood, interrupted her mother, Chalia, and Prasutagus returned his focus to the people around him and his voice regained to its previous unnerving timbre.

That is the only justice, he agreed without a trace of emotion.

There was a woman from without, with a baby, she attempted to travel into the City when we first arrived.  She was discovered and her life was forfeit but Rocas, my daughter, spoke for her and she was spared.  She and her child live now to the best of my knowledge, servants within the City but alive.  We offer you those two lives in payment for these, and she indicated Jephesus and the penwright.

Prasutagus’ face betrayed no reaction, and he looked back blankly at Chalia as he considered.

I am glad to hear it, I recall the woman and her infant, they hid themselves within the caravan.  Two lives then, that is just.

Jephesus looked up for the first time since he had knelt in the sand and a flicker of hope animated his eyes.

But this man, continued Prasutagus looking again at Jephesus, has many more souls to account for.  This party can travel on under my protection, but he remains with me.

No one spoke and Prasutagus took a step forward and laid his white hand on top of Jephesus’ bowed head in a gesture that looked almost like a benediction.

It is just, said Jephesus sadly without looking up, I have done much in the service of the Ethnarch, if spilling my blood can atone for some of that and wipe the deeds from my conscience… and he left the words hanging.

Prasutagus had no weapon, but his body inclined slightly so that his hand moved down to Jephesus’ neck, the long bony fingers encircling his windpipe.

Stop.  Rocas voice broke the heavy silence that had descended.  I will not allow it.  If I travel on to the west, it must be without bloodshed in my wake.  The gatekeeper helped us at enormous risk to himself, you saw the arrows that pursued our flight from the city, and he came because he trusted me.  He not only spared the lives of that mother and child, but two more a shepherd chief and his son that live among you now.  Do you know a Darius and Linsus?

Prasutagus did not release his hold on Jephesus’ neck, but he nodded once.

Darius and Linsus yes, the elder has returned across the red sand to his people, but the boy is here helping with the livestock.

Rocas’ heart leapt at the news.  She had hardly dared to believe that her old friend was still alive after they were separated when entering the City.  Jephesus had told her that he’d spared both father and son, but she’d feared to believe a thing that seemed so fragile that to trust in it too much would break the feeble chance that it was true.  She let out an involuntary sob of relief and could see the look of relief on Chalia and Aaron’s faces also.

Two more lives that this man saved, and how many more than we don’t know about?

I understand, said Prasutagus and he now pulled Jephesus up from his knees so that he was standing on the tips of his toes, in the iron grasp of the white man, the hand around his neck.  Rocas instantly understood the physical strength of this pale leader, a surprise for one so tall and lean.

No, this is not justice, insisted Rocas firmly, and if the red stones are calling me to the west then all who help me along the road deserve our protection.

Chalia spoke next, inspired by her daughter’s words.  This wasn’t the first time she had seen Rocas plead for another, and she felt the same joy and pride at how the baby she had suckled at her breast shortly after the cliff had collapsed and destroyed her former world, had grown into this woman.

This gatekeeper is surely more useful to you and your people alive? she suggested.  He knows all the great and minor gates and the men who command them, the routines of the guards atop the walls.  I agree there is a debt to be paid but let him pay in ways that involve no bloodshed and might bring about some good, repayment for lives he ordered taken.

Prasutagus lowered the gatekeeper slightly so that the man’s feet rested fully on the ground, but his hand remained at the throat.

I lead the people Without, he began softly, by the insights and power given to me by the stone.  It is not to me that this gatekeeper owes a debt, but to all who have suffered by their confinement here.  It is they who should answer to his fate.

Summon Linsus then, suggested Rocas, eager to see her friend alive, let him answer for all and pronounce judgement.  But the suffering here I would lay at the foot of the City’ leader, the Ethnarch, not only upon the head of this one man, a servant and a repentant one at that.

Prasutagus continued to stare into Jephesus’ face and replied without looking at Rocas.

I have felt this Ethnarch through the stone, yes.  This man who would hide behind walls and see flowers grow fat on the water that they hoard, before quenching our thirst.  I know he is there, and he senses me too, a day is coming when he will answer for his actions too.

That day may be upon us soon, I pray, injected Zoticus.  As we left the City, we have suggested a way that he might be deposed, a means of cutting him off from the power of the red stones.  He has enemies, others that would rise up and pull him off the flower throne, you may get your justice sooner than you think.

Prasutagus now released his grip on the gatekeeper and Rocas thought that his bloody eyes did open slightly wider at the news.

I eagerly await the day, said the white man but his voice still flat and emotionless, you would save many of the lives Without if the Ethnarch fell from power.  He considered a moment longer.  You will travel on through my world with my protection and for him, he laid a single bony finger in the centre of Jephesus’ chest, I agree that Linsus the shepherd boy decides and will speak for all.  Tomorrow then when the dark returns.

The feeblest fringe of light of the approaching dawn was beginning to lighten the sky outside the tent and Prasutagus walked swiftly from the place, in a blur of white movement leaving the others staring after him.

Jephesus collapsed back to the ground, the delayed shock turning his legs to water and the penwright and Chalia rushed to his side.

That was well done, Zoticus complimented Rocas, we do owe the gatekeeper our lives.

But Rocas turned away disgusted, still nursing the wound that Zoticus’ planned betrayal of the penwright had struck to her heart.  She felt she could never trust the man again even if she knew that she needed his help, indeed the help of everyone in this party to be able to make the journey through the world between worlds, around the City and on into the west.

CHAPTER 2: The Reunion

Linsus had been tending to the malnourished livestock a half-day’s journey from the shanty town when he’d heard the news of a group that had escaped from the City’s East Gate.  The boy that came to relieve him and care for the animals spoke of a desperate flight across the sand by a group of travellers, pursued by arrows from the watchers atop the walls.  It was rumoured that they had brought the city gatekeeper with them and another servant of the Ethnarch and that they claimed sanctuary and Prasutagus’ protection.

Linsus was filled with hope.  Ever since his expulsion from the City by the gatekeeper on the day that he had arrived with the mapping caravan, he had been waiting Without.  He had been waiting in the hope that his former travelling companions, Aaron, Chalia and Rocas would find a way to leave the realm of the Ethnarch so that together they could return to the east.

He had promised Rocas that he would wait and keeping that promise had become his sole focus, sustaining him during this new, strange life among the outcasts at the base of the city wall.  It even kept him here when his father had journeyed back east to their home, the green pasturelands at the edge of the cliff even though the old man thought the waiting futile and urged his son not to remain when hope was unreasonable.

Linsus made the decision that if this party were not his friends then he too would follow after his father and return to his former life, finally giving up hope that Rocas would ever leave the city.

He left the boy in charge of the scrawny animals and set off at once from the low foothills in which dry, spiky plants provided the animals with some meagre sustenance.  The City loomed distant and wavering in the heat haze, its wall trailing from horizon to horizon with the stone interrupted by the bulk of the great Eastern Gate and the recessed doors of lesser gates in deep shadow.  Beyond the wall he could just make out the rooftops, towers and turrets, the dense humanity crowding around and jealously guarding the water in the aquifer on which the metropolis sat.

He carried a gourd of the animal’s milk to sustain him on the walk back, he would not normally travel in the heat of the morning, but he was so desperate to learn the identity of the escapees.  He was certain it would be Rocas, it seemed just like the sort of action he had come to expect from the wild-eyed, headstrong girl he’d grown up with on the pasturelands, she was followed by drama wherever she went.

During the long night watches guarding the grazing animals and staring up at the pinpoints of light that Linsus believed were the campfires of his dead ancestors, he had admitted to himself that the waiting wasn’t just a case of keeping his word.  He wanted to see Rocas again.  He had hinted as they travelled together before that he would one day ask her to leave her father’s hearth fire and come and join her light to his, he’d risked his life for her on the dangerous road that brought them to the City and felt bound to her.

There was something more also.  When he and his father had been denied entry to the City and thrown out of the east gateway, they had been taken in by the outcasts that lived beyond the walls.  They had been taken first to see the leader of the place, into a tent in which the sand had been cleared and steps had been crudely carved into the naked rock below so that they descended underground into a place of perpetual night.  It was the domain of a strange man with bleached skin, Linsus mistook him first for a ghost, and he questioned them at length about their journey to the City.

This man, Prasutagus, had been unlike any leader that Linsus had met before, he was even unlike his father who had been chief of their tribe back on the pastureland.  Prasutagus listened to their histories, asked them about their skills and asked them what they offered to do in support of this fragile community barely surviving in the shadow of the walls.  Prasutagus did not want anyone who would not work willingly for the benefit of all and if they chose to leave then he would furnish them with whatever provisions could be spared and allow them to go.  He did not command, he sought cooperation only.

The pale man’s reasonable manner was at odds with his terrifying appearance and Linsus had been unable to take his eyes from the red gemstone that was buried in his chest, a network of fine white scars radiating from it and the occasional spot of blood weeping from the edges of a wound that never seemed to heal.

Prasutagus had been surprisingly open about his own life also and seeing Linsus’ curiosity he had placed his pale hand around the gem so that its inner glow of soft red light had shone between his fingers.

"I was born in a great oasis to the west of the City, a place of life among the barren wastes and so fertile that we never needed to move and could welcome and water all who passed.

But such treasure makes men jealous and when I was still a boy, a great army came so that the ground shook with their approach and the palm trees swayed in harmony with their footsteps.  Their numbers darkened the horizon and this red stone, which had been set into a dagger called out to me and told me how to survive.  I heard its voice even though it was buried underground with the corpse of a noble from the City who had sickened and died at the oasis when his mapping caravan passed.

Prasutagus’ eyes burned the same red as the gem as he spoke.

"The stone told me what to do, no one else could hear the voice so I dug down to that rotting corpse and I pulled the weapon from its mummified hand.  I prised out the stone, cut my flesh with the dagger and placed it inside and the voices were instantly clearer and stronger.

"They told me what they know and have guided me ever since, they brought me through the great battle at the oasis, bodies of men and animals piled high across the sand and their decay seeping into the ground and polluting the waters forever.  Men’s greed cursed that treasure in the wilderness,